Paraphrased Transcript: Hello, my name is Tim Willits, and I'm here with Adam Pyle. Here, we are going to talk about all things QC, about how we started in Beta, what we've learned, and how we've gotten to EA, and why EA now. So this is the first of many of these video streams (hopefully), where Adam and I will talk about the game for a bit, and then we'll answer some questions.

Closed Beta: We've been in closed beta for a few months. What do you think we've learned? - What players wanted; we had a lot of expectations about what kind of maps they wanted to play, what kind of champions the preferred, and we've learned alot about how our expectations overlapped with the desires of the playerbase. - We've also learned something about how to teach new players.

Balance: People were concerned about balance and which champions were overpowered, but I believe we've done a great job at leveling the playing-field; there's no single champion that stands above everyone else. Some champions are used more than others in certain modes, but that in itself is fine - every champion is still getting used, even in Duel. All of them are really viable, according to our data.

In duels especially the fact that we encourage 3-picks has caused a meta to emerge of which champions to select relative to the situation and point in the match, rather than just as pure counters to other champions. It's kind of evolved into rather than focusing on 1 champion to "personify" their playstyle, players do so via all 3 picks.

Matchmaking: Big subject, and we've got a lot of feedback. One thing worth mentioning is that it gets lumped into a lot of problems unfairly, e.g. a bad match, long waiting times. We've spent a lot of time working on the logarithm, and looking at our data, MM works really well. For instance, close to 75% of team-games end within a 15-point delta, but one of the things that are important to remember, is that when we continue to EA, more people will join the pool, which will help the matchmaking further.

MM relies on the players having played a lot of matches, the current moment-to-moment size of the pool. We can see everyones skill-rating, and comparing it to QL, those ratings match relatively well. However, since there is such a low population due to the Beta status, we prioritize getting into matches quicker. The point however is that our data shows the MM works; and moving into EA, the bigger player pool will remedy the situation further.

Early Access: -What you get: --DOOM Slayer; Active "Berzerk", Passive "Double-jump" and "Silent Protagonist" (No VO lines, at all). Speed comparable to Ranger. --2 New leves; "Tempest (Shrine)" and "Church (of Azathoth)". ---Tempest Shrine is another Cthala map; mayan look. Two temples that have beacons of light that are calling to each other, exposed to habour area; built as a Sacrifice but works for TDM and DM as well, a little more open than usual. ---Church is a Vulkar(?) map that takes place at the very edge of Vulkars realm, view over the Sky-realm, a lot of scenic views.

Rune Challenges: Complete pages of Champion specific, selectable challenges. One page for each Champion, and completing them established you've learnt that Champion, and earns you a unique cosmetic reward, i.e. Mastery Shaders.

Divided into 4 sections, one for each elder god, once you complete one section, you get a shader for that god, and once you complete all 4, you get a Master shader.

Lore: Collect lore-scrolls that has a chance to drop from, for example, pots in maps. You pick them up, and you learn more about each of the champions. Once you collect them all, you will unlock a unique lore model for each Champion. This is the ONLY way to get these lore models; they can not be dropped as loot, nor bought for Platinum or the like.

We've also created ties between some of them; rivalries, etc., for the people who care about the characters - and the skins are amazing, albeit it takes a long time to gather them, but they are free and [meant, writes note] as a prestige item.

Note that I believe the above 2 quotes are regarding two separate mechanism. 1, Rune Challenges, is specific to Champions (1 page of various challenges per champion), the other, Rune Book, is specific to Elder Gods (1 of 4 sections for each Elder God, with challenges relating to the other gods)

New Player Training: A surprising amount of new players did not seem to comprehend the basic concept of Quake; picking up weapons, armor, even health, were things that some people wouldn't know. This is of course also hard to learn in the midst of the heat of battle. So we've developed a "basic training level" broken up into two main parts. This will teach you what to pick up, etc. Then move you into a shooting gallery, teaching you what weapons to use in what situations and what ranges; the targets are colour-coded to the weapons, which is the only weapon that can destroy that target. As the player moves through the map, these targets increase and necessitate more proactive use of weapons. So if you have some friends who found it too hard to grasp, tell them to give it another try in EA! We're going to continue on this formula after EA, adding in things like advanced movement, not just teaching people how to move but also giving them a place to train and practice. Expanding this further into abilities, and so on and so forth.

Stay'n'Play: Looking at the statistics, we have found that most people are most likely to stop playing in between matches. So what we've done is to change the way you can continuously play. In EA, at the end of a Match, you will stay in the game and continue to play the next map. If someone drops out, we will put in another player - you'll still see your battle-reports, etc., but you'll be put back into the match.

Choose your Skill: At the beginning, you get to pick your own level of skill (be honest, now!), which predetermines your skill-level to begin with.

QuakeCon Lightning Gun: We wanted to make QuakeCon a bit more global, so we've made a special QuakeCon themed Lightning Gun; QuakeCon orange body, shoots orange lightning, has the QuakeCon logo. If you play QC during QuakeCon, you automatically get this Lightning gun -- this is a timed exclusive, it won't be available after this QuakeCon! (Highlighted due to time-sensitive nature)

Champion Pack: We're offering the Champion Pack, which contains all current and future champions, 3 "ReLiQuArIeS", and the unique Ranger skin "Gladiator"; a bit of a throwback to Quake 1 Ranger with a bit of a twist. To join us in EA through Steam, the Champion Pack is required - it'll be on sale for 29.99$ during EA, 39.99$ after EA.

If you've played with us during Beta, you can continue to play with us, but only via the Bethesda.net Launcher. If you opt for this, you will start with Ranger - in other words, EA will start with a wipe!

There will NOT be separate server for Steam and Bethesda.net users! One big happy family!

Final News: - Upcoming new Duel map, a lot of verticality! - CTF; we are huge CTF fans, but to be honest, it's hard to coordinate a good team. So we are looking at what we can do in the next couple of months in regards to CTF. We think that with the abilities, we could add a whole new dynamic! - We'll have more of these [AUA streams], so we won't have to talk about everything right now!

Q&A: Q: Possible to remove speed cap? A: Not really, because the speed caps are an integral part of the balance control. Without them, we can't control the balance of each champion. It's important that we have those constraints.

Q: Anarki & Nyx hitboxes? (And Slash and Galena) A: They all have smaller frames and thus smaller hitboxes. Last update they got a bit thinner, this update they will be a little bit bigger; we filled in gaps like in their armpits.

Q: Sarge? A: Great (but difficult) character. He's not coming off the bat. We identified abilities we wanted in the game, and then assigned characters that either fit those roles, or made some that did. No one currently fills a "sarge role", we feel.

Q: Anti-cheat? A: We've been gathering data, and fixing issues in the underlying code on the one hand, learning everything we need to, while also developing an effective anti-cheat to roll out moving forward.

Q: Rockets. A: As you've already seen, we've improved network code substantially since the beginning of beta. We had some issues with the rockets and hitboxes, so we've addressed those issues. So for all of you that are joining us in EA, if you see anything with them in EA, tell us. Is it perfect? Nnnnyyy-it's close. In general, we've really fixed the rockets, and one thing we're going to fix with the hitboxes still. But do report anything you see.

Q: Different in EA in terms of engaging the community? A: More of these. One thing is that we like to keep you all a little bit in the loop of what we're doing, but Development is a very heads-down type of work; a lot of time, a lot of work. But we need to remember to not just focus on the work, but also let people know what we're doing. We know the future of Quake, but it's a long road, so it's important to share that a little bit. We do keep some cards close to the chest, of course, as it is important to remember that we're also trying to figure stuff out. Things changes, goals change; it's development. You iterate and you try to improve on something. Often we have a plan, but we find out either through the players or our own experiences that the plan needs to be reworked a bit. Which makes for a hard balancing-act; on one hand, we want to share, on the other, we don't want to disillusion.

I've had meetings where I've been accused of "saying that we had to do it!" (Tim Willits).

But we'd like to do a lot more out-reach.

Q: The state of the game. A: EA is the next stage, but we're still making tweaks and adjustments. If you buy the Champion pack, vanity items, or what not; You won't lose those! If we have a catastrophic issue, we'll fix those, but you won't lose what you bought.

Q: Community Maps. A: They're a good thing to provide longevity for the game, but we're not there yet. We're focused on making a great game with great maps of its own, so that it immediately fills what you want out of it. Community maps are equally harder to make these days. We might go down that road in the future, but we simply don't know yet; We strive for it - no one loves Community Maps more than me - but it's not a fire-and-forget thing; it's much more server-side than previous installments. We simply do not have a crystal-clear roadmap for that yet. Sorry.

Q: Buff Visor and Nerf Anarki? A: Anarki is a strong champion, but he is not a game-breaking champion. Clutch and Galena have actually shown to be good counters to Anarki. That being said, it is harder to take things away from a champion than it is to elevate the other champions. We will take care of his hitbox, especially when strafing, and we'll probably do something about that.

Q: Vulkan support? A: We've been working closely with AMD. We're currently working with them on Vulkan, and it'll be here when it's ready; it's still in development, but making progress.

Q: DOOM Slayer talks? A: No; it'll actually likely be added to his list of passives the update after the EA release, which simply mentions he doesn't speak ("Silent Protagonist"). It does have a very, very minor impact on gameplay, as he will be slightly harder to detect. Conversely, Anarki is slightly more vocal as a counter; you can potentially easier tell where Anarki is - DOOM Slayer will be a strong silent type.

Q: Offline mode vs. Bots? A: We know Bots are important, it is definitely something we have on our roadmap, but we have no ETA - there's multiple stages. Offline mode is much more difficult, because this game isn't a packaged, fire'n'forget retail game. There's security issues with offline mode; it's more than just being able to play by yourself. When we move that technology and code out to the world, that becomes the issue. It's easier for us to provide LAN servers to events than it is to maintain security for an offline mode. If we find a way to safeguard what we want while in Offline mode, we will re-evalutae that.

Q: FPS Limiter, custom-crosshairs, Lucy, hitboxes? A: (1) FPS Limiter, yes, but no timeframe - hasn't been a priority for us, but we know it's important for people. (2) Custom crosshairs; they're coming, but we're also hoping to have a more robust cross-hair system. (3) Lucy? We have good deal of fan-favourite requests, but we won't get into that right now, so we'll leave a big question-mark here. (4) hitboxes are being worked on, some changes are coming that should make it easier and more consistent to hit people.

Q: Party of 4 being matches with a group of random pubbers. A: We do check first for other parties of 4, but it depends on the moment-to-moment availability. Of course voice-chat for everybody will help. However, since it's beta, we aren't waiting for long for other people to come along, so the influx of players should help with that.

Q: Demos? A: We know they're important - you know how I said "you said we had to?", this is potentially one of those moments, so we'll take a raincheck for now on that question.

Q: Voice-chat A: You'll be able to turn it off completely or individually muting players.

[...] -CTF; we are huge CTF fans, but to be honest, it's hard to coordinate a good team. So we are looking at what we can do in the next couple of months in regards to CTF. We think that with the abilities, we could add a whole new dynamic! [...]

So that's it for now. We're committed to having more of these (Dev Stream), and we'll have one again next week. EA starts next week (22nd), we have a lot of great content, done a lot of work under the hood, and the tournament coming up. Stay tuned, and keep an eye on our social for the next live AUA!